Ministry Of Finance’s AI-Generated Ads: Cool Or Creepy?

Earlier this month, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) took to Instagram to bring awareness to their enhanced Assurance Package, a scheme aimed to alleviate the financial stress on Singaporean families.

MOF shared an image, created by AI tools, of a family of four in a park.

Netizens did not take to the visual very well.

One netizen shared a screengrab of MOF's post on the r/Singapore Reddit thread, with the caption: “MOF using AI in their advertisements. Ugly and filled with errors. Can you spot the errors?”

The post has since received plenty of engagement, with other netizens commenting on what made that ad look… off.

Those who have had the chance to work with AI-generated pics would know how difficult it is to create lifelike hands and feet. They usually end up looking wonky, sometimes with an extra thumb or toe.

That’s what happened here. Zoom in on the woman's hand, and you would notice a phantom finger on her right hand.

A man in the background also has completely warped toes.

Others also pointed out the weird shape of the streetlamps in the background, as well as the figure of a young kid which they say looks like a “gremlin”.

On closer inspection, one would notice the couple’s teeth resemble a row of same-sized rectangles rather than teeth.

No surprises then that the image has drawn plenty of criticism from netizens, with a number calling it “creepy” and “horrendous”.

A popular comment likening the image to a “scam ad” was up-voted at least 1.1K times.

Many others agreed, saying that AI-generated images are usually associated with scams on social media, and so it might not be the way to promote an actual government initiative.

A Reddit user (buwanana) has since shared their edited version of the visual on a separate thread, with the caption: “Hi MOF, I created these images for you using AI. It’s not that hard leh!”

Although some felt the people buwanana's work “still have too many teeth”, a good number agreed that it was an improvement from the original.

The Reddit user also shared a collection of other visuals, which featured real Singaporean families.

They revealed it took them “about 15 mins to generate the four photos plus quick editing with Photoshop”.

“I feel the images can be made flawless with enough generations+ editing. Probably 30 mins of work, which is ridiculously short compared to the amount of time/effort to do this without AI,” they wrote.

While we totally understand that AI tools are all the hype right now and that MOF might have wanted to appeal to the online-savvy population, it begs the question: Is there a place for AI-generated images in official posts shared by government organisations?